Beyond Awareness – Reframing Cultural Awareness in our Sector

Is Cultural Awareness just another box to tick or should it be the beginning of seeing the world around you in a whole new way?

All too often, cultural awareness is a reactionary response. The real power of cultural awareness lies in doing the work before these moments so that best practice is already in place.

An Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person walking into a workspace should already feel warm, welcomed, and respected. The service environment is should already be a culturally safe place where trust can be built upon and offer comforting responses to their needs in a moment of crisis.

Beyond Awareness: Culturally Safe Practice in Our Sector is exactly the tool to help our sector practitioners with their own personal and cultural shifts from performative gestures to that of genuine preparation in body, mind and spirit. This program is not about starting from scratch, but on what is already known. Beyond Awareness gives us the opportunity to reflect on a deeper level, to unpack and consider where knowledge came from, and how this knowledge was framed.

Are there still unconscious biases that are operating beneath the surface? 

In a safe place that’s conducive to conversation, it’s less focused on learning about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and instead, invites practitioners to notice the stories we carry, sometimes from childhood, and be curious while exploring common beliefs and assumptions. The Beyond Awareness space is not for debating, but for dialogue, grounded in respect and learning.

Through this powerful and evocative workshop, participants are supported to move beyond their current practice by embedding culturally responsive practice into their everyday work. They gain practical tools, including developing a personalised action plan, that can adapt and grow with them. Participating practitioners also explore reflective practices to help check in with themselves when unconscious bias, stereotypes or racism might show up inadvertently. (It won’t happen overnight, right?) This helps move from ‘one size fits all’ approaches and confidently develops thoughtful context-specific responses when working with peoples whose cultures are different to their own.

Beyond Awareness: Culturally Safe Practice in Our Sector becomes not just a learning experience, but an unlearning one as well when we show up with curiosity, humility and connection. Cultural awareness requires continual effort, attention and engagement from sector, to ensure we are maintaining best practice and routinely checking our behaviour.

So far, Beyond Awareness has been delivered in six locations across the state, with more sessions on the way.  New dates and regions will be announced soon, so keep an eye open on our website and social media for an opportunity near you. If you are interested in Beyond Awareness being run near you, contact Jade or Rona at workforce@healingfoundation.org.au.